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Unproduced Christmas specials
This article is about Christmas specials that were planned or announced, but were ultimately cancelled during production. ''Mickey's Nephews'' Mickey's Nephews was an unmade Christmas-themed Mickey Mouse short that was in production in 1938. According to the book The Disney That Never Was, it was to have a similar plot to Mickey's Orphans, in that Mickey would play Santa for a group of orphans who previously appeared in the shorts , , and Orphans' Picnic.The Disney That Never Was: The Stories and Art of Five Decades of Unproduced Animation, by Charles Solomon. 1995, Disney Editions. However, the title suggests that the short would have instead featured Morty and Ferdie Fieldmouse, Mickey's nephews from the newspaper comic strip. ''Santa Claus: The Movie'' (John Carpenter's version) In 1984, John Carpenter was one of many directors attached to helm Santa Claus: The Movie, intending to cast Brian Dennehy or Wilford Brimley as the titular character. However, not enjoying the screenplay, Carpenter wanted to write an entirely new script with his sole credit, additionally wanting to compose the film's musical score. The studio wasn't interested in Carpenter doing anything besides directing and he eventually left the project over creative differences. Jeannot Szwarc would go on to direct the final project with David Huddleston playing Santa Claus. ''A Tin Toy Christmas'' A Tin Toy Christmas, a production by Pixar Animation Studios, was to have been a follow-up to their 1988 short film Tin Toy. It was to have been directed by , who was also co-writing the special with , , and . The special's plot follows Tinny, the eponymous toy from Tin Toy. In the special's context, he is 1940s musical toy who was put in storage because he didn't sell very well. Many years later, he awakens in a huge megastore during Christmas and goes searching for his old friends, meeting a ventriloquist's dummy and a junkman. After the project was shelved for two years, John Lasseter took it out again and expanded the concept to a feature-length film, which eventually became . ;External links *Pixar Wiki: A Tin Toy Christmas ''I'll Be Home for Christmas'' (Peanuts) I'll Be Home for Christmas was an unmade Christmas special based on the newspaper comic strip that was in production during the 1990s. Storyboards for this unproduced special can be seen in the book The Art and Making of Peanuts Animation by Charles Solomon, along with this plot summary: The summary suggests that the special would have been adapted from a three-week storyline that ran in the comic strip from December 4-22 of 1967. However, in the original story, Snoopy was going to Grenoble, France, where the Winter Olympics were being held that year. ''The Nightmare Before Christmas'' sequel In 2001, the Walt Disney Company began to consider producing a sequel to The Nightmare Before Christmas, but rather than using stop-motion, Disney wanted to use computer animation. convinced Disney to drop the idea. "I was always very protective of Nightmare not to do sequels or things of that kind," Burton explained. "You know, 'Jack visits Thanksgiving world' or other kinds of things just because I felt the movie had a purity to it and the people that like it... Because it's a mass-market kind of thing, it was important to kind of keep that purity of it." ''Santa Calls'' When bought , their first feature film with them was originally going to be an animated film based on the children's book Santa Calls by author William Joyce. It follows Santa Claus asking three gifted children to help him defeat an army of dark elves and save Christmas. However, the film's production was canceled due to difficulties to improve the CGI animation and problems with the production; ultimately, Blue Sky's first theatrical film was Ice Age in 2002, and Joyce later worked with Fox and Blue Sky on Robots and Epic. Untitled 2008 Doctor Who Christmas special In 2008, an untitled Christmas episode of ''Doctor Who'' was written, but never produced. The plot would involve an alien creature attaching itself to , author of the books, resulting in the world being turned into a magical reality influenced by her imagination. The Doctor would have to battle wizards and witches in order to find Rowling and set things right. "Miracle on Bannerman Road" "Miracle on Bannerman Road" was an unmade episode of , written by Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman, that would have served as the conclusion to the fourth series. It was to be a take on A Christmas Carol in which a guide (the role of whom was at one point considered for Tom Baker) would show Christmas past, presents and future to Sarah Jane. Untitled Marvin the Martian movie On July 29, 2008, and announced plans for a live action/computer-animated Christmas movie starring antagonist Marvin the Martian. The film would be about Marvin, who would be voiced by , trying to destroy the Earth during Christmas by becoming a competitor of Santa Claus, portrayed by . The film was scheduled to be released on October 7, 2011, but as of 2019, appears to have been scrapped. Test footage of the film (which featured voicing Marvin) was leaked on December 28, 2012. ''Prep & Landing 3'' In a 2011 interview promoting Prep & Landing: Naughty vs. Nice, creators Kevin Deters and Stevie Wermers-Skelton stated that there were plans for another entry in the series, but that they could not reveal any more about the project. The project ultimately never made it to broadcast, and the two were instead assigned to Olaf's Frozen Adventure in 2016; by this point, the two spoke of the series in the past tense. ''Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever'' Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever was to be an animated Christmas television special based on the book of the same name. It was announced that it would be airing on FOX in late 2014, but appears to have been canned. Untitled In Search of Santa sequel Michael Aschner was commissioned to write for a sequel to In Search of Santa that would follow Eugene as he learns about himself being a long-lost prince from the neighboring island beyond Royal Rookery Rock. However, Aschner quit writing for animation after he got impressed by in its original theatrical release period, and the shutdown of Tundra Productions after At Jesus Side premiered in the wake of the production troubles of the original special. ISoS Follow-Up Squeal Treatment.png ''Anti-Claus'' In April 2014, Kevin Smith announced the Christmas-themed horror movie Anti-Claus, with a script based on the episode "The Christmas Special" of his Edumacation podcast. The script was co-written by his Edumacation co-host Andrew McElfresh, marking it the first script Smith collaborated on with another writer. Filming was initially scheduled for September 2014, with Tusk actors Justin Long, Michael Parks and Haley Joel Osment returning as cast. The movie centered around the European folklore figure Krampus, a devil-esque creature who punishes naughty children. The film was cancelled due to the release of the 2015 film Krampus, which centered around the same topic. In June 2017, Smith announced that the script was retooled to Killroy Was Here, with Krampus being replaced by a monster based on the graffiti phenomenon. The film started shooting that same month, with the crew consisting of students of the Ringling College of Art and Design. References Category:Lists